Data storage using peptide sequences

Abstract

Humankind is generating digital data at an exponential rate. These data are typically stored using electronic, magnetic or optical devices, which require large physical spaces and cannot last for a very long time. Here we report the use of peptide sequences for data storage, which can be durable and of high storage density. With the selection of suitable constitutive amino acids, designs of address codes and error-correction schemes to protect the order and integrity of the stored data, optimization of the analytical protocol and development of a software to effectively recover peptide sequences from the tandem mass spectra, we demonstrated the feasibility of this method by successfully storing and retrieving a text file and the music file Silent Night with 40 and 511 18-mer peptides respectively. This method for the first time links data storage with the peptide synthesis industry and proteomics techniques, and is expected to stimulate the development of relevant fields.

Biomimetic Metallic Nanostructures for Biomedical Applications, Catalysis, and Beyond

“…493−495 Some literature has shown that the functionalization of metallic nanomaterials with biomolecules provides distinguished physicochemical properties that could enhance data storage efficiency. 487,489,491 As shown in Figure 14c, Chen et al employed an LbL approach to fabricate nanostructures with alternating layers of polyethylenimine (PEI) as a polycationic polymer and DNA as a polyanionic biopolymer for the encapsulation of carboncoated iron NPs inside the LbL nanostructures. According to this study, the qPCR results showed that the stability and storage density of DNA strands in the protected structures is significantly increased as compared to the unprotected DNA.…”

“…More recently, researchers have demonstrated that biomolecules such as peptides, proteins, polysaccharides, DNA, RNA, virus, and cell membrane have promising prospects to meet the storage demands of big data centers. ,− Data storage based on biomolecules is a significant step toward developing green data storage devices, where DNA has taken the lion’s share in this regard. , DNA is a stable, writable, rewritable, readable, and data-dense biomolecule, so it has recently received the great attention of scientists as a versatile data storage medium. Despite the striking features of DNA, the utilization of biomolecule in data storage is still in its infancy and requires more research and developmental efforts to reach its maturity for practical applications. − Some literature has shown that the functionalization of metallic nanomaterials with biomolecules provides distinguished physicochemical properties that could enhance data storage efficiency. ,, As shown in Figure c, Chen et al employed an LbL approach to fabricate nanostructures with alternating layers of polyethylenimine (PEI) as a polycationic polymer and DNA as a polyanionic biopolymer for the encapsulation of carbon-coated iron NPs inside the LbL nanostructures. According to this study, the qPCR results showed that the stability and storage density of DNA strands in the protected structures is significantly increased as compared to the unprotected DNA.…”

Robotic synthesis of peptides containing metal-oxide-based amino acids

“…[3][4][5]7 Furthermore, this programmable approach has been employed to configure complex peptide synthesis reactions through coupling-deprotection reactions of natural amino acid derivatives. 3 A variety of peptides have been fabricated in a combinatorial fashion to explore biochemical mechanisms, 10,11 develop new functional materials, 12,13 and create artificial enzymes. 14,15 To further improve bioactivity, bioavailability, and structural diversity, many unnatural inorganic residues-including metal clusters, [16][17][18] polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS), 19 and oligonuclear transition metal coordination complexes 18,20,21 -have been incorporated as non-canonical amino acids into peptide sequences through manual synthesis.…”

Peptide-Based Sensing, Logic Computing, and Information Security on the Antimonene Platform

“…DNA sequences can be utilized to encode and store data, and DNA was assembled with other materials or platforms to imperceptible DNA systems, which can hide and protect DNA information and read out using DNA sequencing or molecular recognition to develop molecular security technology (like DNA cryptography and/or steganography , ). , Compared to 4 nucleotides in DNA, 20 amino acids or even more could, in principle, permit peptides to have a higher density and more durability than DNA for information coding. Very recently, Yao et al, for the first time, encoded data using peptide sequences and read out using tandem mass spectra, demonstrating the feasibility of peptide data storage . However, there are currently no reports on the use of peptides for information security.…”